DAY 11 - Building with a Caixa construction loan in Brazil

when the project meets reality

Construction loan

This text is part of Tetéia’s Building Journal — an ongoing series documenting the process of building a house on the Maraú Peninsula, in Bahia, Brazil, between design, territory, and everything that escapes planning.

There’s a common idea about building a house: that it starts with the design. In our case, not exactly. It started with a project that fit within our financial reality.

Tetéia is being built with a combination of personal funds and a construction loan. In Brazil, only a few banks offer financing for building on privately owned land — and in this model, the land must be fully paid off, as it serves as collateral for the loan. Among these banks, Caixa Econômica Federal — a public bank — usually offers more accessible interest rates, but also comes with a higher level of bureaucracy.

Choosing this path meant understanding, from the beginning, that the house would not be just a design exercise. It would also be a technical, financial, and administrative process. Before any aesthetic decision, we needed to understand how far we could actually go.

The Caixa construction loan simulation tool helps estimate how much financing might be available — not an approval, but enough to understand the limits. In most cases, the loan only covers part of the construction cost, and the rest needs to come from personal resources.

From there came the adjustments: budget, choices, priorities. And most importantly, understanding the program of the house — what truly belonged in the project and what didn’t make sense to sustain in that context. This became clearer when we started to understand what actually works — and what doesn’t — when building in Maraú.

There were many conversations with the architect and the contractor, and decisions started early. From structure to finishes, many choices were already made at the design stage, because we had a clear sense of how much the construction could cost. That changes everything: it avoids rework, avoids excess, and brings the project closer to what it can realistically become.

There’s an idea that design comes first and reality comes later. But in this case, the two unfolded together — and that may be what allowed the house to actually take shape.

Throughout the process, some things only became clear in practice. One of them: not every Caixa branch offers construction loans. In some cities — especially large urban centers — financing is often limited to purchasing ready-built properties.

In our case, all research started online. But it was at a local branch closer to us — in Itacaré — that things actually moved forward. That shift from digital to local made a difference.

Another important point is that your relationship with the territory can influence the process. Living in the region, having a recognized address, and having properly registered land — all of this can affect feasibility and loan conditions. These are layers that don’t appear in the initial simulation.

If you’re thinking about building a house in Brazil, maybe the first step isn’t imagining the house. Maybe it’s understanding the conditions that allow it to exist.

For a starting point, Caixa’s official simulation tool can help.

Other moments of this process are being documented in Tetéia’s Building Journal.